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THE 

UNVEILING 



OF THE 



Bronze Memorial Group 



OF THE 



CHICAGO MASSACRE 



OF 1812. 



CEREMONIES 



AT 



THE UNVEILING 



OF THE 



Bronze Memorial Group 



OF THE 



CHICAGO MASSACRE 



OF 1812. 



/CHICAGO: 
PRINTED FOR THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

1893. 



d^^ 



c^ i 



'01 



Blakely & Rogers 
Chicago. 



CEREMONIES. 



THE ceremonies at the unveiling of the Bronze 
Memorial Group of the Chicago Massacre of 
1812, were held near the "Massacre Tree," at the 
eastern end of Eighteenth Street, in the City of 
Chicago, on June 22nd, 1893, in pursuance of the 
following invitation, addressed by the Chicago His- 
torical Society to its members and friends, to the 
number of fifteen hundred or more : 

THE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
OF THE 

Chicago Historical Society 
request the honor 

OF 

YOUR ATTENDANCE AT THE UNVEILING OF CARL ROHL-SMITH's 

BRONZE MEMORIAL GROUP OF THE CHICAGO MASSACRE 

OF 1812, AND THE PRESENTATION OF THE 

WORK TO THE SOCIETY 

BY 

George M. Pullman, 
the ceremony will take place near the " massacre tree," 

AT THE EASTERN END OF EIGHTEENTH STREET, AT FOUR O'CLOCK ON 
THE AFTERNOON OF THURSDAY, JUNE 22d, 1893. 

At the hour and place appointed a large audience 
assembled. Among those present were Mr. and Mrs. 



George M. Pullman, Ex-President Benjamin Harrison 
and his daughter, Mrs. McKee ; Chief Justice Melville 
W. Fuller, Hon. Lambert Tree, Dr. N. S. Davis, 
Hon. Thomas W. Palmer, Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, 
Prince Isenberg, General and Mrs. Nelson A. Miles, 
Marshall Field, Mrs. H. O. Stone, Rev. Dr. Clinton 
Locke, Miss Kate Field, E. S. Willard, Mr. and Mrs. 
John M. Clark, Mrs. Wirt Dexter, Mr. and Mrs. 
Arthur Caton, Mrs. Sanger, Miss Pullman, Norman 
WilHams, W. G. Hibbard, Mr. and Mrs. Frank 
Carolan, Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball, Mr. and Mrs. 
George L. Dunlap, Hon. Darius Heald, General 
Horace Porter, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Doane, O. S. 
A. Sprague, Franklin H. Head, H. N. Higinbotham, 
General John Corson Smith, E. L. Brewster, Judge 
and Mrs. Grosscup, Ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull, Mr. 
and Mrs. E. B. McCagg, E. W. Blatchford, A. B. 
Pullman, Mrs. Edmund Norton, Mrs. R. L. Henry, 
Miss Reuling, Mrs. Charles P. Kellogg, Miss Emma 
Kellogg, Mrs. L. M. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. G. B. 
Marsh, Miss Clark, Miss Gretchen Isham, Miss Lucy 
Isham, Mrs. James A. Mulligan, Thomas Dent, Mr. 
and Mrs. W. K. Nixon, Mrs. Wilmerding, District- 
Attorney Milchrist, Miss Laura Williams, Mr. and 
Mrs. William E. Hale, Mr. and Mrs. Murry Nelson, 
Charles H. Mulliken, Gen. and Mrs. A. L. Chedain, 
Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Wadsworth, James Wadsworth, 
John D. Adair, Paul Selby, Miss Nina Smith, William 



D. Kerfoot, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel H. Kerfoot, Mr. 
and Mrs. T. W. Harvey, H. N. May, Mr. and Mrs. 
N. K. Fairbank, Col. and Mrs. John M. Loomis, John 
G. Shortall, C. Gunther, William G. Beale, A. F. 
Stevenson, H. B. Mason, Miss Kimball, A. T. 
Andreas, James W. Scott, John B. Drake, William W. 
Stewart, Augustus Jacobson, Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. 
King, Orson Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Kirkland, J. 
Irving Pearce, Joseph E. Otis. 

Conspicuous among the guests were a number of 
old residents of Chicago, including Judge John D. 
Caton and S. B. Cobb (1833), Fernando Jones, 
Charles C. P. Holden and George M. Gray (1835), 
A. G. Burley, A. H. Burley and Charles E. Peck 
(1836), Robert Fergus, Peter L. Yoe, Eugene C. 
Long and John C. Long (1840). 

The President of the Chicago Historical Society 
announced that the Society had received a letter from 
George M. Pullman, Esq., which read as follows: 

Chicago, June 19th, 1893. 

E. G. Mason, Esq., President Chicago Historical 

Society, Chicago, III. 
Dear Sir: — The proximity to my home of the old 
Cottonwood tree, which marks the spot in the vicinity 
of which occurred the massacre of the major portion 
of the earrison and residents at and near Fort Dear- 
born, on August 15th, 181 2, suggested the thought of 



6 

contributing an addition to the many valuable relics 
belonging to your Society by the erection of an en- 
during monument, which should serve not only to 
perpetuate and honor the memory of the brave men 
and women and innocent children — the pioneer settlers 
who suffered here — but should also stimulate a desire 
among us and those who are to come after us to know 
more of the struggles and sacrifices of those who laid 
the foundation of the greatness of this City and State. 
I have been fortunate in securing the services of the 
eminent sculptor, Mr. Carl Rohl-Smith, who, after 
extended and careful research and investigation of 
the subject, has succeeded in producing a group of 
statuary and designs in basrelief which embody the 
prominent incidents and culminating scenes of the 
massacre. The monument is finished, and located 
just loo feet due east from the " Massacre Tree," 
and I have now the pleasure of presenting it, with 
appropriate deed of gift, to your Society in trust for 
the City of Chicago and for posterity. With great 
respect, 

Yours sincerely, 

George M. Pullman. 

At the conclusion of the reading of the letter the 
Memorial Group, which had been draped with our 
National flag, was unveiled by Miss Pullman and 
George M. Pullman, Junior. It was greeted by those 



present with great enthusiasm, and with appropriate 
music by the Royal Hungarian Band. 

Mr. Edward G. Mason, President of the Chicago 
Historical Society, then spoke as follows : 

MR. MASON'S ADDRESS. 

The Chicago Historical Society accepts this noble gift 
in trust for our city and for posterity with high appreciation 
of the generosity, the public spirit, and the regard for his- 
tory of the donor. It realizes that this monument so wisely 
planned and so superbly executed is to be preserved not 
simply as a splendid ornament of our city but also as a 
most impressive record of its history. This group, repre- 
senting to the life the thrilling scene enacted perchance on 
the very spot on which it stands, barely eighty years ago, 
and its present surroundings, make most vivid the tre- 
mendous contrast between the Chicago of 1812 and the 
Chicago of 1893. It teaches thus the marvelous growth of 
our city, and it commemorates as well the trials and the 
sorrows of those who suffered here in the cause of civiliza- 
tion. The tragedy which it recalls, though it seemed to 
extinguish the infant settlement in blood, was in reality 
one which nerved men's arms and fired their hearts to the 
efforts which rescued this region from the invader and the 
barbarian The story which it tells is therefore of deeper 
significance than many that have to do with 

"Battles, and the breath 

"Of stormy war and violent death," 

and it is one which should never be forgotten. 

With its suggestions before us how readily we can picture 
to ourselves the events of that 15th day of August in the 
year of grace 1812. Hardly a week before there had come 
through the forest and across the prairie to the lonely Fort 
Dearborn an Indian runner, like a clansman with the fiery 



8 

cross, bearing the news of the battle and disaster. War with 
Great Britain had been declared in June, Mackinac had 
fallen into the hands of the enemy in July, and with these 
alarming tidings the red messenger brought an order from 
the commanding General at Detroit, contemplating the 
abandonment ot this frontier post. Concerning the terms 
of his order authorities have differed. Capt. Heald, who 
received it, speaks of it as a peremptory command to evacu- 
ate the fort. Others with good means of knowledge say 
that the dispatch directed him to vacate the fort if practi- 
cable. But Gen. Hull, who sent the order, settles thiy^, 
question in a report to the War Department, which has 
recently come to light Writing under date of July 29th, 
18 12, he says: 

"I shall immediately send an express to Fort Dearborn 
with orders to evacuate that post and retreat to this place 
(Detroit) or Fort Wayne, provided it can be effected with a 
greater prospect of safety than to remain. Capt. Heald is a 
judicious officer and I shall confide much to his discretion.'* 

The decision whether to go or stay rested therefore with 
Capt. Nathan Heald, and truly the responsibility was a 
heavy one. Signs of Indian hostility had not been wanting. 
But the evening before Black Partridge, a chief of the 
Pottawatomie tribe, long a friend of the whites, had entered 
the quarters of the commanding officer and handed to him 
the medal which the warrior wore in token of services to the 
American cause in the Indian campaigns of "Mad" Anthony 
Wayne. With dignity and with sadness the native orator said: 

"Father, I come to deliver up to you the medal I wear. 
It was given me by the Americans, and I have long worn 
it in token of our mutual friendship. But our young men 
are resolved to imbue their hands in the blood of the 
whites. I cannot restrain them and I will not wear a token 
of peace while I am compelled to act as an enemy." 

This striking incident has been fitly chosen as the subject 
of one of the reliefs on the pedestal of the monument. It 



typifies the relations between the hapless whites and their 
red neighbors at the moment and the causes which had 
changed friendship into hatred, and it sounds the note of 
coming doom. 

On that dreary day one gleam of light fell across the 
path of the perplexed commander, Capt. William Wells 
arrived from Fort Wayne with a small party of friendly 
Miami Indians to share the fortunes of the imperiled garri- 
son. This gallant man, destined to be the chief hero and 
victim of the Chicago massacre, had had a most remarkable 
career. Of a good Kentucky family, he was stolen when a 
boy of 12 by the Miami Indians and adopted by their great 
chief, Me-che-kau-nah-qua, or Little Turtle, whose daughter 
became his wife. He fought on the side of the red men in 
their defeats of Gen. Harmar in 1790 and Gen. St. Clair in 
1791. Discovered by his Kentucky kindred when he had 
reached years of manhood, he was persuaded to ally himself 
with his own race, and took formal leave of his Indian 
comrades, avowing henceforth his enmity to them. Joining 
Wayne's army, he was made Captain of a company of scouts, 
and was a most faithful and valuable officer. When peace 
came with the treaty of Greenville in 1795, he devoted him- 
self to obtaining an education, and succeeded so well that 
he was appointed Indian agent and served in that capacity 
at Chicago as early as 1803, and later at Fort Wayne, where 
he was also the government interpreter and a Justice of the 
Peace. Here he heard of the probable evacuation of the 
post at Chicago, and knowing the temper of the Indians, he 
gathered such force as he could and made a rapid march 
across the country to save or die with his friends at Fort 
Dearborn, among whom the wife of Capt. Heald was his own 
favorite niece, whose gentle influence had been most potent 
in winning him back from barbarism years before. It 
seemed almost as if he had resolved to atone for the period 
in which he had ignorantly antagonized his own people by 
a supreme effort in their behalf against the race which had 
so nearly made him a savage. 



lO 

He came too late to effect any change in Capt. Heald's 
plans. The abandonment was resolved upon, and the stores 
and ammunition were in part destroyed and in part divided 
among the Indians, who were soon to make so base a return 
for these gifts. At 9 o'clock on that fatal summer morning 
the march began from the little fort, which stood where 
Michigan avenue and River street now join, on a slight 
eminence around which the river wound to find its way to 
the lake near the present terminus of Madison street. The 
garrison bade farewell to the rude stockade and the log 
barracks and magazine and two corner block-houses which 
composed the first Fort Dearborn. When this only place of 
safety was left behind, the straggling line stretched out 
along the shore of the lake, Capt. Wells and a part of his 
Miamis in the van, half a company of regulars and a dozen 
militiamen, and the wagons with the women and children 
following, and the remainder of the Miamis bringing up the 
rear. You may see it all on the panel on the monument, 
which recalls from the past and makes very real this 
mournful march to death. The escort of Pottawatomies, 
which that treacherous tribe had glibly promised to Capt. 
Heald, kept abreast of the troops until they reached the 
sand hills intervening between the prairie and the lake, and 
here the Indians disappeared behind the ridge. The whites 
kept on near the water to a point a mile and a half from the 
fort and about where Fourteenth street now ends, when 
Wells in the advance was seen to turn and ride back, swing- 
ing his hat around his head in a circle, which meant in the 
sign language of the frontier: " We are surrounded by 
Indians." 

As soon as he came within hearing he shouted: "We are 
surrounded; march up on the sand ridges." And all at 
once, in the graphic language of Mrs. Heald, they saw " the 
Indians' heads sticking up and down again, here and there, 
like turtles out of the water." 

Instantly a volley was showered down from the sand hills, 
the troops were brought into line, and charged up the 



II 

bank, one man, a veteran of seventy years, falling as they 
ascended. Wells shouted to Heald, "Charge them!" and 
then led on and broke the line of the Indians, who scattered 
right and left. Another charge was made, in which Wells 
did deadly execution upon the perfidious barbarians, load- 
ing and firing two pistols and a gun in rapid succession. 
But the Pottawatomies, beaten in front, closed in on the 
flanks. The cowardly Miamis rendered no assistance, and 
in fifteen minutes' time the savages had possession of the 
baggage train and were slaying the women and children. 
Heald and the remnant of his command were isolated on 
a mound in the prairie. He had lost all his officers and half 
his men, was himself sorely wounded, and there was no 
choice but to surrender. 

Such, in merest outline, was the battle, and one of its 
saddest incidents was the death of Capt. Wells. As he rode 
back from the fray, desperately wounded, he met his niece 
and bade her farewell, saying: " Tell my wife, if you live to 
see her — but I think it doubtful if a single one escapes — tell 
her I died at my post, doing the best I could. There are 
seven red devils over there that I have killed." As he 
spoke his horse fell, pinning him to the ground. A group 
of Indians approached; he took deliberate aim and fired, 
killing one of them. As the others drew near, with a last 
effort he proudly lifted his head, saying: " Shoot away," 
and the fatal shot was fired. 

So died Chicago's hero, whose tragic fate and the hot 
fight in which he fell are aptly selected as the subjects of 
the other basreliefs of this monument. The bronze group 
which crowns it is an epitome of the whole struggle, reveal- 
ing its desperate character, the kind of foemen whom our 
soldiers had to meet, and their mode of warfare, their mer- 
ciless treatment of women and children, and setting forth 
the one touch of romance in the grim record of the Chicago 
massacre. It illustrates the moment when the young wife 
of Lieut. Helm, second in command of the fort, was 



12 

attacked by an Indian lad, who struck her on the shoulder 
with a tomahawk. To prevent him from using his weapons 
she seized him around the neck and strove to get possession 
of the scalping-knife which hung in a scabbard over his 
breast. In the midst of the struggle she was dragged from 
the grasp of her assailant by an older Indian. He bore her 
to the lake and plunged her into the waves; but she quickly 
perceived that his object was not to drown her, as he held 
her head above water. Gazing intently at him she soon 
recognized, in spite of the paint with which he was dis- 
guised, the whilom friend of the whites, Black Partridge, 
who saved her from further harm and restored her to her 
friends. For this good deed, and others, too, this noble 
chief should be held in kindly remembrance. 

It is difficult to realize that such scenes could have taken 
place where we meet to-day; but history and tradition alike 
bear witness that we are assembled near the center of that 
bloody battlefield. From the place on the lake shore a few 
blocks to the north, where Wells' signal halted the column 
over the parallel sand ridges stretching southwesterly along 
the prairie and through the bushy ravines between, the run- 
ning fight continued probably as far as the present inter- 
section of Twenty-first street and Indiana avenue, where one 
of our soldiers was slain and scalped, and still lies buried. 
Just over on Michigan avenue must have been the little 
eminence on the prairie on which Heald made his last rally, 
and right before us the skulking savages, who had given way 
at the advance of our men, gathered in their rear around the 
few wagons which had vainly sought to keep under the 
cover of our line. 

If this gaunt old cottonwood, long known as the "Mas- 
sacre Tree," could speak, what a tale of horror it would tell. 
For tradition, strong as Holy Writ, affirms that between this 
tree and its neighbor, the roots of which still remain beneath 
the pavement, the baggage wagon containing twelve children 
of the white families of the fort, halted and one young sav- 



13 

age climbing into it, tomahawked the entire group. A little 
while and this sole witness of that deed of woe must pass 
away. But the duty of preserving the name and the locality 
of the Chicago massacre, which has been its charge for so 
many years, is now transferred to this stately monument, 
which will faithfully perform it long after the fall of the 
"Massacre Tree." 

Capt. Heald's whole party, not including the Miami 
detachment, when they marched out of Fort Dearborn com- 
prised fifty-four regulars, twelve militiamen, nine women 
and eighteen children — ninety-three white persons in all. 
Of these twenty-six regulars and the twelve militiamen were 
slain in action, two women and twelve children were mur- 
dered on the field, and five regulars were barbarously put to 
death, after the surrender. There remained then but thirty- 
six of the whole party of ninety-three, and of the sixty-six 
fighting men who met their red foemen here that day only 
twenty-three survived. These, with seven women and six 
children, were prisoners in the hands of the savages. We 
know of the romantic escape, by the aid of friendly Indians, 
of Capt. and Mrs. Heald and Lieut, and Mrs. Helm; and 
three of the soldiers, one of whom was Orderly Sergeant 
William Griffith, in less than two months after the massacre 
found their way to Michigan, bringing the sad news from 
Fort Dearborn. Hull's surrender had placed Detroit in the 
hands of the enemy; but the Territorial Chief Justice, Wood- 
ward, the highest United States authority there, in a ringing 
letter to the British Commandant, Col. Proctor, under date 
of Oct. 8, 1812, demanded in the name of humanity that 
instant means should be taken for the preservation of these 
unhappy captives by sending special messengers among the 
Indians to collect the prisoners and bring them to the near- 
est army post, and that orders to cooperate should be issued 
to the British officers on the lakes. Col. Proctor one month 
before had been informed by his own people of the bloody 
work at Chicago, and had reported the same to his superior 



14 

officer, Maj. Gen. Brock, but had contented himself with 
remarking- that he had no knowledge of any attack having 
been intended by the Indians on Chicago, nor could they 
indeed be said to be within the influence of the British. 

Now, spurred to action by Judge Woodward's clear and 
forcible presentation of the case, Proctor promised to use 
the most effective means in his power for the speedy release 
from slavery of these unfortunate individuals. He com- 
mitted the matter to Robert Dickson, British agent to the 
Indians of the Western Nations, who proceeded about it 
leisurely enough. March, i6, 1813, he wrote from St. 
Joseph's Lake, Mich., that there remained of the ill-fated 
garrison of Chicago, captives among the Indians, seventeen 
soldiers, four women, and some children, and that he had 
taken the necessary steps for their redemption and had the 
fullest confidence that he should succeed in getting the 
whole. Six days later he came to Chicago and inspected 
the ruined fort, where, as he says, there remained only two 
pieces of brass ordnance, three-pounders — one in the river, 
with wheels, and the other dismounted — a powder magazine, 
well preserved, and a few houses on the outside of the fort, 
in good condition. This desolation apparently was not 
relieved by the presence of a single inhabitant. Such was the 
appearance of Chicago in the spring following the massacre. 
Of these seventeen soldiers, the nine who survived their long 
imprisonment were ransomed by a French trader and sent 
to Quebec, and ultimately reached Plattsburg, N. Y., in the 
summer of 1814. Of the women two were rescued from 
slavery, one by the kindness of Black Partridge; and the 
others doubtless perished in captivity. Of the children we 
only hear again of one. In a letter written to Maj. Gen. 
Proctor by Capt. Bullock, the British commander at Mack- 
inac, Sept. 25, 1813, he says: "There is also here a boy 
(Peter Bell) 5 or 6 years of age, whose father and mother 
were killed at Chicago. The boy was purchased from the 
Indians by a trader and brought here last July by direction 



15 

of Mr. Dickson." Of the six little people who fell into the 
hands of the Indians this one small waif alone seems to have 
floated to the shore of freedom. 

The Pottawatomies, after the battle and the burning of 
the fort, divided their booty and prisoners and scattered, 
some to their villages, some to join their brethren in the 
siege of Fort Wayne. Here they were foiled by the timely 
arrival of William Henry Harrison, then Governor of the 
Indiana Territory, with a force of Kentucky and Ohio 
troops, and condign punishment was inflicted upon a part at 
least of the Chicago murderers. A detachment which Gen, 
Harrison assigned to this work was commanded by Col. 
Samuel Wells, who must have remembered his brother's 
death when he destroyed the village of Five Medals, a lead- 
ing Pottawatomie chief. To one of the ruthless demons who 
slew women and children under the branches of this tree, 
such an appropriate vengeance came that it seems fitting to 
tell the story here. He was older than most of the band, a 
participant in many battles, and a deadly enemy of the 
whites. His scanty hair was drawn tightly upward and tied 
with a string, making a tuft on top of his head, and from this 
peculiarity he was known as Chief Shavehead. Years after 
the Chicago massacre he was a hunter in Western Michigan 
and when in liquor was fond of boasting of his achievements 
on the warpath. On one of these occasions in the streets 
of a little village he told the fearful tale of his doings on 
this field with all its horrors; but among his hearers there 
chanced to be a soldier of the garrison of Fort Dearborn, one 
of the few survivors of that fatal day. As he listened he 
saw that frightful scene again, and was maddened by its re- 
call. At sundown the old brave left the settlement, and 
silently on his trail the soldier came, "with his gun," says the 
account, " resting in the hollow of his left arm and the right 
hand clasped around the lock, with forefinger carelessly toy- 
ing with the trigger." The red man and the white passed 
into the shade of the forest; the soldier returned alone; 
Chief Shavehead was never seen again. He had paid the 



i6 

penalty of his crime to one who could, with some fitness, 
exact it. Such was the fate of a chief actor in the dark 
scene enacted here. 

Many others of the Pottawatomie tribe joined the British 
forces in the field, and at the battle of the Thames, Oct. 5, 
1813, they were confronted again by Harrison and his rifle- 
men, who then avenged the slaughter at Chicago upon some 
of its perpetrators. Victor and victim alike have passed 
away. The story of their struggle remains, and this master- 
piece will be an object-lesson teaching it to after generations. 
Mr. Pullman's liberal and thoughtful action is a needed 
recognition of the importance and interest of our early 
history, an inspiration to its study, and an example which 
may well be followed. The event which this monument 
commemorates, its principal incidents, and the after fortunes 
of those concerned in it, have been briefly sketched and 
much has necessarily been left unsaid. But we should not 
omit a grateful recognition of the services of the able civilian 
soldier, William Henry Harrison, who stayed the tide of 
barbarism which flowed from the Chicago massacre, and 
humbled the tribe which was responsible for that lurid 
tragedy. The name of Harrison is intimately and honorably 
associated with the early days in the Northwest, with the 
war of 181 2, and with the highest office in the gift of the 
American people half a century ago. It is likewise inti- 
mately and honorably associated with the later days of the 
Northwest, with the great Civil War, and again with the 
highest office in the gift of the American people in our own 
times. It is fitting that the distinguished descendant of 
William Henry Harrison should be here to-day. It is a high 
honor that the eminent ex-President of the United States 
should grace this occasion with his presence, which makes 
these exercises complete. I have the great pleasure of 
introducing to you ex-President Benjamin Harrison. 



17 



EX-PRESIDENT HARRISON'S ADDRESS. 

Chicago is exalted to-day, lifted up to a pinnacle that 
brings upon her the vision of the world. The nations, great 
and small, all races and tongues, have sent hither their 
official representatives with the choicest product of their art 
and of their handicraft. She has builded for the reception 
of the Nation's guests and for the display of their treasures 
palaces which in extent, in adaptation, and in classic grace 
and beauty far excel the best efforts of the cities that have 
before opened their gates to receive the representatives of 
the world. 

Doubts, difificulties, jealousies, and petty criticisms have 
been swept away and the clear sunlight of a magnificent 
success shines upon the great enterprise. All other States 
and cities of this proud, united, and happy land share with 
you in the joy of this success, for it is an American success. 
But we are not at the White City to-day. Here, at this 
quiet corner by the lakeside, we come to be instructed by 
recalling an incident of the year 1812. These exercises are 
not out of time. They are not inharmonious. The starting 
post as well as the finish must be taken account of in the 
race. We get a better view of the oak if we hold the acorn 
in our hands while we look at the buttressed trunk, the 
towering crown, and the spreading branches of the magnif- 
icent tree. The first rude structure that moved by steam 
upon the tramway sets off the 90-miles-an-hour locomotive 
more than its paint and brasses. So the picture Mr. Mason 
has given us of Chicago in 1812 makes the city of 1893 more 
wonderful, more a thing of magic, than the White City. 

But there is something better than the mere sense of 
growth to be had out of this brief visit to Fort Dearborn, to 
the Kinzie house and to the sand dunes that drank the 



i8 

blood of brave men and women and of innocent children. 
It is morally wholesome for a man or a community that has 
been highly exalted to consider the beginning. The soldier 
whose banner has triumphed on every field where it has 
been unfurled does well to look at the cradle in which he 
was rocked and the homely surroundings of his childhood, 
for they recall the services and the sacrifices of that gen- 
eration, and of the humble father and mother whose un- 
selfish and unobserved heroism made his greater career pos- 
sible. Doing this he will carry away some abatement of his 
pride and a higher sense of obligation. 

I am glad that we are beginning to build monuments. 
Bunker Hill was, not long ago, lonesome, but now every 
city and nearly all counties have built in commemoration of 
the heroes and of the cause. The Sculptor has found the 
universal language. He speaks to the schooled and to the 
unschooled. The history of the conquest of the West is 
full of incidents calculated to kindle the historian and to 
stir the imagination of the novelist, the painter and the 
sculptor. The pioneer was as fine as he was unique in 
character. Free and unconventionally brave and self-reliant, 
as responsive to the cry of distress as a knight-errant, he 
pushed the skirmish line of civilization from the Alleghanies 
to the Rockies. All honor to him! He labored and forever 
entered into his rest. We possess the lands he won from 
the savagery of Nature and of the natives. Have we as 
strong a hold upon the sturdy virtues which his life illus- 
trated? 

Every community should properly mark the scene of 
such historical event as we now commemorate. The future 
is full of imperious demands, but the historian serves the 
future as effectively as the projector. We shall value our 
possession of lands and free institutions more highly if we 
learn that they were bought not with corruptible things, as 



19 

silver and gold, but with precious blood, the blood of 
the brave and of the innocent. We shall, after this lesson, 
be more willing to preserve by blood, if need be, that which 
was bought by blood. 

This event which this monument commemorates was not 
a great military achievement. In the light of history the 
evacuation was a fatal mistake, but it was the occasion for 
bringing into prominence, it gave a field of display, for some 
of those traits of heroism, of courage in men and women, 
which so marked the whole course of our pioneer experience. 

I am glad that the generosity of your fellow-citizen ( Mr. 
Pullman) has marked this spot. There is a teaching and an 
inspiring force in every such structure. Our land is not old. 
We cannot show to these visiting foreigners any ruins or 
any ivied castles. There is the mark of the chisel yet upon 
all our structures. And yet no century of the history of any 
nation's life can be found fuller of heroic adventure, of 
unselfish devotion to duty, of high enterprise, and of success 
in the establishment of great institutions than this century 
of our young existence. 

It is, I am sure, a pleasant thing for you who are here to 
turn back and away for a moment from these hurrying scenes 
that are about you and to look with contemplative eye upon 
these incidents in the early history of Chicago, which, if they 
teach any lesson, teach this: that the prosperity of commun- 
ities, the safety and honor of states, must be bedded upon a 
virtuous, self-respecting, law-abiding and God-fearing people. 



20 



THE MEMORIAL GROUP. 

At the conclusion of the address of Ex-President 
Harrison, the audience gathered around the Memorial 
Group to carefully inspect this beautiful work of art. 

The group represents the rescue of Mrs. Helm by 
Black Partridge, and, in accordance with Mr. Pullman's 
suggestion, the moment chosen is when Mrs. Helm, 
attacked by an Indian, who intends to brain her with 
his tomahawk, tries to grasp the scalping knife from 
his scabbard. Black Partridge, seeing her danger, 
rushes to her aid, and claiming her as his prisoner, 
prevents the perilous blow. The figure lying on the 
plinth is the surgeon of Fort Dearborn, Dr. Van 
Voorhis who had the well known conversation with 
Mrs. Helm which was interrupted by the Indians' 
assault. He was ikilled by another Indian at the 
same moment Black Partrido-e' saved the life of Mrs. 
Helm. The baby is one of the twelve children toma- 
hawked by the Indian the same day. 

The four basreliefs on the pedestal tell some of 
the important incidents of the tragedy. The panel 
facing South-east represents Black Partridge return- 
ing to Captain Heald, Commander of Fort Dearborn, 
the medal presented to him by the government. This 
took place in the Court of the Fort on the evening 
before the evacuation. The figure on Captain Heald's 



21 



right side is Captain Wells sent to the assistance of 
the Fort with a small band of friendly Miami Indians. 
In the background, the garrison and women making 
preparations for the departure on the following 
morning. 

The panel facing South-west, shows the march 
from the Fort along the shore of Lake Michigan, 
Captain Wells and his Miamis leading the train, then 
Captain Heald with the garrison, wagons containing 
women and children, Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm on 
horseback, and a party of Indians following the train; 
Fort Dearborn is visible in the background to the 
right. 

The North-east panel represents the attack of the 
combined Indian Tribes on the garrison. 

The death of Captain Wells is shown on the North- 
west panel. His horse shot under him and himself 
mortally wounded, he asks Mrs. Heald, who passed 
him on her flight, to take a message to his wife. She 
sees an Indian aiming at him, and he seeing her 
terror, coolly turns his breast toward the Indian and 
shouts: "Shoot away!" In the background Fort 
Dearborn and Lake Michigan. 

An artistic conception of this historical event 

could not go to any of the known styles of plastic art 

for an adequate expression; it would have to sacrifice 
something of its character, 

A massacre, perpetrated by savages, demands for 



22 



full expression the portrayal of the highest degree of 
violence, and the equipoise and dignity which are the 
fundamental elements of all plastic art. 

This problem the artist has tried to solve by giving 
to the outline of the whole group, when seen at a dis- 
tance at which the individual motives of action and the 
details of treatment are still indistinct, that careful 
balance between part and part, that architectural 
symmetry which is the severe demand of all classical 
plastic art; while within this firm framework he has 
let loose that intense play of manifold forces, which is 
the only true messenger between reality and the 
human imagination, and which, therefore, neither art 
nor history dares to give up. 

The panels have been treated so as to allow of full 
realism in the representation both of human beings 
and landscape, and the very low relief in which they 
are executed contributes to give the main group a 
more dominant, more forcible position. 

The artist's work fully justifies the encomium of a 
competent art critic, who says: "It is one of the great- 
est pieces of realistic sculpture that has ever been 
given to plastic art in this or any other part of the 
world. It is the first time that the real American 
Indian — in feature, form, costume and methods of 
warfare — has ever been given to the world in bronze; 
and so far as my information goes, it is the only time 
that living models have been used for that purpose. 



23 

Anyone familiar with plastic art, and who has seen the 
Indian and studied his history, cannot fail to see that 
the artist has been remarkably successful in reproduc- 
ing the original faithfully, that he has indeed given us 
a really great work of permanent artistic and historic 
value." 

The group and basreliefs are bronze, cast by the 
Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co. of New York. Height of 
group 9 feet; dimensions of plinth, 7 feet 10 inches 
by 4 feet 7 inches; size of basreliefs, 7 feet 2 inches 
by 2 feet 5 inches, and 3 feet 1 1 inches by 2 feet 5 
inches. 

The pedestal is dark polished Quincy granite, 
executed by the Hallowell Granite Co. of Chicago. 
Height, 10 feet; base, 13 feet by 9 feet 9 inches. 

In a cavit}' in the pedestal, directly under the 
central figure, was placed a copper box containing 
the following: 

Chicago City Directory, 1893; official directory 
World's Fair; standard guide of Chicago; Great Fire 
pictures; portraits, engravings, etc.; Story of Chicago, 
Kirkland; Story of Massacre, Kirkland; Judge Caton's 
narrative concerning the Massacre Tree ; Holden's 
sketch concerning battlefield; cylinder of phono- 
graphic speech; letter of donation; daily newspapers 
of Chicaofo. 



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